An American’s Vision Healed – in India By Shlomo MaitalKristos StavropoulosKristos Stavropoulos is Chief Information & Technology Officer at Maguire Investments. The only reason I mention this, is that I assume he has the resources to get top-flight medical care anywhere in the US. Instead he went to … India. India? Stavropoulos recounts that he had a corneal scar – a scar on the thin transparent layer that covers the iris and pupil of the eye and refracts light. A scar on the cornea can be a major problem. Caused by an eye infection, the scar affected his vision – rather crucial in his line of work. So he travelled all the way to Hyderabad, in southern India, to the L V Prasad Eye Institute. (I have visited LVPEI several times, and recently met with its amazing founder, Dr. G. N. Rao, in Israel). At LVPEI Stavropoulos consulted Dr. Sayan Basu. She is an expert in a highly complex and revolutionary treatment, that uses stem cells to regrow and repair corneas. Stem cells are human cells that have the ability to become whatever is needed – include corneal tissue – depending where they are. But they are notoriously difficult to work with. Here is what Stavropoulos said, after successful treatment: “My experience at LVPEI has been exceptional. When you think of surgery, it’s scary, especially with eyes. But the great thing about this institute is the positivity and expertise that the doctors and the team have. Most importantly, I trusted Dr. Basu and was assured about the success of the treatment that I was provided.” So far, over 1,600 innovative stem cell procedures have been performed at LVPEI, Patients from India, and from all over the world, have benefited from these innovative procedures. At LVPEI, wealthy patients pay for patients who have no money. But everybody, EVERYbody, gets the same quality of medical care. And the enormous scale of the medical care means that even experimental high-tech procedures can be tried, improved, studied – and made standard. At LVPEI I learned about an even more amazing technology under development – use of stem cells to regrow RETINAL cells (the retina is the kind of mirror, or light receptor, at the back of the eye, subject to retinal detachment, or macular degeneration [e.g. holes in the retina] ). So, if you have eye disease, and if your doctors tell you they can’t treat it – check out LVPEI. Because Indian people have so many eye diseases and problems, LVPEI experts have vast experience – and creativity plus experience leads to innovative medical care that pushes frontiers to amazing places. In the past 31 years, LVPEI has treated 28 million people, many of them from very poor villages. By the way, Dr. Rao is now working to establish an LVPEI-type clinic in Monrovia, Liberia. This, despite Liberia’s strong links with the United States (it was founded by former American slaves). It is hard for even top American doctors to understand how to establish medical care centers in very poor countries – but LVPEI knows how. Liberia’s legendary former president Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, who heard of LVPEI and whose close relative was successfully treated there, visited LVPEI, made the request – and LVPEI responded.